You might be a Domino geek if ... The latest "Domino is Dead" article makes your blood boil!

You've read the article, it compares Exchange features to Notes, and the conclusion, Exchange has a lower TCO, is easier to administer, is more scalable, in short Exchange is better!

If you've recently read an article like that and your blood is boiling, you really might be a Domino Geek.

I love those articles, every time I read one, I just smile knowingly. Unfortunately, some CIO's, CFO's and CEO's out there also read the article and believe it. Kinda makes you wonder huh!

I'd love to spend some time with a few of those decision makers on the golf-course, or wherever (I play racquetball too), and have a quiet chat.

When was the last time you read an article that really DID do a feature comparison, that added in the down-sides, in short - examined the facts and did a realistic comparison.

Today, I'm writing about why I LOVE Notes, and why it makes my day to day life so much easier than the "market leading" alternative (depends on who's figures you believe). To those of you who are reading this article from a non-Domino point of view, I make no apologies, read on - you might yet see the path from the Dark Side...

I'm going to go down the MS path, and see what I'm missing in my day-to-day work environment by working with Notes.

OK, so I've decided that I need email. I obviously need an email server. So I need Exchange (Let's call it Product A). And then I need an email client, so I'll install Outlook (Product B). Thankfully Outlook not only has email, but it also has calendaring, a to-do list and personal contacts. Great - I don't need additional products for those tasks. There's my email sorted out, my day organised and my upcoming tasks planned.

Now I'm going to include instant messaging into the mix, so I can still receive immediate communications from associates in the next office when I'm on the phone, or from those associates around the world who are as conscious about saving the company a dime on international phone calls as I am, so I'll install Instant Messenger (Product C). Thankfully our corporate network runs our own IM server (Product A), so we don't need additional software for that task.

A call has just come in regarding a booking that I need to schedule in our corporate planner. I instantly load Project (Product D) and connect to our Project Server (Product E) to enable me to block out my time in the system so no-one can schedule me as a resource while I'm out seeing the client.

Today I'm also going to update our web-site and add a new product so that clients can review our latest offering. So I fire up FrontPage (Product F), connect to my IIS server (Product G) and make the required addition with the new page, and modify the navigation page resource so that it appears throughout the site.

What's that - new email notification. OK, a client wants more detail on the new product from the web-page, so I fire up Word (Product H), connect to my file server - a fast, new Win2003 server (Product I), find the document, customise it to suit their requirements (Product H), and Email it (Product B) to the client for their review. The client has also thoughtfully pointed out a minor error on the new web-page, so I edit it (using product F and G) and submit my changes.

Web check the new addition (Product J), to make sure it looks OK.

Wow - I have competently navigated my way through 6 software packages, and it's still only lunch-time!

Now the big task for the day, that mail-out I was asked for. I think that's in the CRM system, so I fire up our new whizz-bag customised Visual Basic (Product K) interface to the CRM DB stored on our SQL Server (Product L), and do a quick search. Nope. The data hasn't been transferred across form the local office data yet. That's OK, it must be in our local Access (Product M) customer database on the network (Product I) that we were supposed to send into IT so they could do the "upgrade" for us and include it in the centralised system (Product L).

Found it! Now, I get the right data (Product M) choose the "easy" link to merge it with Word (Product H) and create my mail out. Let's save some more money for the company, I'll email (Product B) the document to those clients who like email - quick re-query (Product M) - and back into Word (Product H), to create the mail-out via email (Product B).

No wonder I'm now happy dancing like the baby off Ally McBeal, I've just done a better job than Jerry Rice on a Sunday afternoon!

And I haven't even had my afternoon cuppa Joe yet!

Oh-Ohh! My Email's down. That's OK, I'll go next door to Janice, who also has Word (Product H) and Outlook (Product B) installed, so she can send out the mail-out for me. Oh-NO!! I Forgot! Janice is on the same mail server I'm on, and if I have an email problem, so does she. Help desk time! No response. Not a problem, open the help desk interface (Product K) to the central reporting system (on Product L) and log a job.

So what have I done today??

I've used email, calendar and to-do, a word-processor, a file system, a web-page editing tool, instant messaging, a web-browser, relational database management system, a custom interface to another relational database management system, a project management utility, network resources and another custom interface to another RDBMS.

And who is this "Nick Burns" from IT, and why is he snorting through his nose something about "Workflow" as he smugly belly-laughs his way down the hallway - what the hell IS Workflow anyway????

Reality check time.

For me, all of the above tasks are performed in one interface (Notes), while working with just a handful of databases, my Mail database, the Customer DB, my web DB and the marketing library. Heaven help anyone who has to navigate through 8 (that's eight) separate interfaces and applications to perform the same tasks.

That would be a Network CAL, an Exchange CAL, an Office (Professional) licence, and a Project licence, without even THINKING about the development effort to write the VB interfaces and DB's, not to mention the TRAINING involved in becoming proficient with the use of all of that software. And we haven't even begun thinking about the effort involved in making all of those apps work together to automate some of those tasks (Workflow).

Would someone PLEASE do the Math?

How can an environment where there are at least 5 (that's FIVE) server products and 8 (That's eight!) client products, with their associated administrative expertise and proficient client interaction lead to a system that has a lower TCO than a software application with ONE client interface, with ONE administrative environment?

I don't mind the flight from Australia to the US. It gives me time to think about issues like these. I would really like to talk to YOU about how we can make a single product a life-FORCE for your business.

Time to do a REAL comparison...

Notes Rulez!

&nsbp